Speak In Truth
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day fifty-one: Following the revelation about her stutter, Tina goes to Artie to explain herself.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a second cycle. Now entering the seventh through ninth weeks, here comes cycle 3 of my gleekathon! _

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**"Speak in Truth"  
Artie/Tina**

After Artie had left her standing out in the hall, she'd let him go. She wanted to follow, but he was too fast. So she'd gotten the wheelchair back in the rehearsal room and she'd gone home.

The next day, she'd tried a few times to approach him, talk to him, but every time he saw her, he turned and rolled away, and if he couldn't roll away, he just turned away… which felt just as bad.

As they were preparing for the wheelchair number though, she looked at him, sitting off near the wings to the stage. Everyone else was getting ready, the girls working on their hair. She finished on her own long pigtails and she made a decision, looking at him. They needed to talk, needed to work through this before the number. This was supposed to be happy… It would be tainted if they left things the way they were at the moment.

So she'd gotten up and moved to approach him. His back was turned so that he didn't see her… that was a good thing. At least she could close enough before he could see her and evade. But then, Kurt said something that made Mercedes bust out laughing so much that it made Artie look back. He was smiling with curiosity, but then… his eyes fell on Tina, who was only a few feet away now, and the smile slowly slid off his face and he moved to roll away.

"Artie, wait," she dashed forth, grabbing one of the handles at the back of the chair, levelling herself to come standing in front of him. He couldn't move away. "Artie, just…" He didn't look at her.

"Let go," he told her, keeping calm.

"I can't do that," Tina shook her head. "Please, let me…"

"Tina, let go," his eyes moved up for a second, and so did his insistence.

"I didn't lie to you!" Tina pleaded. That made him look up at her. He had that same look on his face as he'd had the previous night. "Okay, I did, but not… not when it mattered."

"It always matters."

"Not like this." He didn't understand. "We were friends, I know that should have been enough, but… It's not the same…" she took a breath. "I meant what I said… that I like you… I have, for a while, but… I didn't know if you felt it too, so… I couldn't open myself up… not like that." He looked down, so she got to the point. "But the moment I knew it could be more, I told you."

He wasn't resisting her anymore. After a moment, she let go of the chair, stood back up. His hands went to the wheels, and she felt her heart stop. But he didn't back away. He turned to face her head on.

"I'm still not…" he started. "I can't just forget about…"

"No, I understand," she looked down to her hands. "I hate that I hurt you," she shook her head. "I never wanted to do that," she looked back to him. He was trying very much to show that he was still upset, but looking at Tina and seeing how deeply pained she was for her deception, it brought him back to the feelings he had whenever he'd look at her before… She had such power over him and he couldn't stand not being close to her again. But then he still had his own pains, over the lies.

"We can move past it… But I need to make some things heard first."

"Okay," she nodded.

"I can't just forget this…" she shook her head. "We'll… start over." She looked down for a second, but she nodded. "And then maybe we can get back to where we were… as close to it as possible, at least," he shrugged.

"Definitely," she agreed.

"There is one other thing though." Their eyes met. "This is the important part." She paused.

"Okay," she finally nodded.

"No more stuttering." She'd expected that would be it. After a moment, she gave another nod.

"Alright," she promised. "I know it's important, and I want to show you can trust me again."

"Thank you, I appreciate that… but that's not the reason… not all of it," he corrected. "It's like I said, I can't see pushing people away, and especially with you… I think people should get the chance to know someone like you," he gave her a quick smile, and she gave one back, accompanied by a slight rosiness in her cheeks.

"I'll tell the others tomorrow," she shrugged, looking beyond Artie's head to the rest of the group, who was moving to get into their wheelchairs. They'd come to move into position any moment now, taking away the isolation they presently had. Artie looked as well, before turning back to her. "We all worked hard on this. No sense in letting it go to waste."

"I agree," Artie nodded. "This week's been interesting… Diva off, wheelchair lessons… first dates…" he listed off.

"First date," Tina repeated, smiling. "Any chance of there being a second? Someday…" she spoke with a hint of hope. Artie nodded slowly with a soft smile.

"Someday… Yeah."

Voices broke around their smiling faces, as the rest of the club wheeled past. Brittany ferried Tina's chair over and she sat in it, feeling the pressure on her heart gone… Things would be right again, as they should be.

THE END


End file.
